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Rockwood volunteer denied bus trip

By Adam Taylor, By Adam Taylor
12:06 a.m. EDT October 31, 2013

Eighty-Four year-old Nancy Schanes poses for a portrait in her home on Wednesday afternoon, October 30, 2013. After a confrontation with New Castle County CAO David Grimaldi, Schanes was told she could no longer volunteer at Rockwood Museum. Schanes was then told she cannot go on a bus trip with her former volunteer friends because of county regulations and negative publicity from the previous argument.(Photo: KYLE GRANTHAM/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Nancy Schanes, the 84-year-old volunteer who was banished from Rockwood Museum after an exchange with a top New Castle County official, learned this week from the county that she was not welcome on a bus trip to visit a mansion with her former colleagues because of the negative publicity over the earlier confrontation.

Schanes came to the county’s attention after she and Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi exchanged words when he, with his girlfriend, inspected the Rockwood Museum’s ceilings for water damage while attending the Faerie Festival on Sept. 22. Schanes was told last month she could no longer volunteer at Rockwood, where she had been a tour guide for 30 years.

Schanes attended a volunteers’ meeting a couple days after she was told she could no longer work at the mansion to tell her colleagues she’d no longer be working with them. At that meeting, plans were made for a Nov. 2 bus trip to Pennypacker Mills, an estate with a mansion in Schwenksville, Pa.

She asked her colleagues if she could attend the trip and was told she could. Earlier this week, a county employee said she was not allowed to attend.

“The person said it was because they were using a county bus and that someone from the county was going on the trip,” Schanes said “And because of all the newspaper article.”

After County Executive Tom Gordon learned from a News Journal reporter Wednesday that Schanes was kicked off the trip, he overruled his underling’s decision.

“She’s welcome to be on the trip,” county spokesman Tony Prado said.

Prado said that the trip is an in-service training day for the volunteers. An employee from the county’s community services department told Schanes she couldn’t attend because she was no longer a volunteer, not because of publicity about her exchange with Grimaldi.

Before Gordon reversed the county’s course, Schanes said she was upset when she learned she couldn’t go.

“The trip is just a way for the volunteers to have a good time together and see something interesting,” Schanes said.

Friends of Rockwood President June Zappa said the bulk of Schanes’ social life came from her volunteer work.

“Getting let go hurt her and I think being told she couldn’t go on the trip hurt her again,” Zappa said. “At 84, you don’t have as big of a selection for a social life that you used to have.”

After the September confrontation became public, Grimaldi said he would be OK with Schanes returning as a volunteer long as she was polite to the public. Schanes said she would not return because of how she was ousted.

Wednesday, Prado re-iterated the offer for her to return to work.

“She’s welcome to come back,” he said. “County Executive Gordon wants to work with the Friends of Rockwood, he really does.”

Gordon kicked the Friends Group out of the mansion during his first tenure as county executive from 1997-2004 in a battle over control of the museum's operation and its furnishings. Chris Coons, Gordon’s successor, brought the friends group back in 2005.

Gordon began his second stint as county executive last November.

Earlier this year, he refused to let the friends group pay for a $100,000 renovation project at the museum, he said, because it would have violated the county’s prevailing wage law.

Zappa thinks the snub was a continuation of Gordon’s fight with the group.

Schanes said she has no plans to return as a volunteer, but will probably go on the trip on Saturday.

“Well gee willikers, I don’t know what to say,” Schanes said immediately after learning that Gordon said she could go. “My leaning at the moment is to go, for the social aspect. I always enjoy the trips. And I really want to go.”